Concerning Grey Hair and Magical Campfires
by Tassel630
Summary: Returning to Camp Half-Blood for the sixth year. Percy/Annabeth fluff. Oneshot.


**A/N: So… new fandom for me. Hi, guys. It probably bodes ill that my first writing over here is fluff, which isn't my strong point, but hey. I'll give it a shot.**

**Oh, I almost forgot. Ninja C is my beta. And the reason that this isn't languishing in my binder.  
**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, my name is not alliterative. I mean, Rick Riordan is just so fun to say.**

I waved alone from the top of Half-Blood Hill as my mom's new blue car – a first-anniversary present from Paul – wound away on the deserted road. I had thought Annabeth and I would be returning to camp together, but she had done so well in her classes that she had been exempt from most of her exams, arranged to take the remaining ones early, and skipped the last week of school to visit her dad in San Francisco. Though I had managed to pass this year, a cause for celebration, I hadn't done well enough to be exempt from any exams. Maybe next year, when Annabeth and I would be taking a course on classical Greek Mythology. We were looking forward to it.

Alone or no, I couldn't help but smile as I jogged down the hill toward the Big House. There was a check-in policy this year, in order to accommodate all the new campers. Mr. D sulked behind a desk with a "Returning Campers" sign on it. The other line – mostly kids between ten and twelve years old – stared at me with something resembling awe. I couldn't help but feel a bit self-important under their admiring gazes. I adopted a jaunty gait and approached Mr. D's empty line cockily – until I tripped an almost went sprawling across his paperwork. I heard muffled snickers.

"Survived the school year, did you?" was Mr. D's cold greeting. "One of these years you'll collapse during a spelling test and stop coming back."

I did my best not to roll my eyes. "Not happening anytime soon. Sir."

"Hmph." He scanned a list of campers on his desk. "Here we are, Peter Johnson." He made a tiny mark beside my name. "You'll stay in Cabin Three, with – "

"I know, Mr. D," I interrupted impatiently.

Dionysus raised his eyebrows at me. "Do you intend to impede me in my camp-running duties?"

"No, sir," I amended hastily.

"Then please, direct your energies toward impeding your tongue instead. Now. You'll stay in Cabin Three, with Poseidon as you patron god, blah blah blah, try not to kill other campers, blah blah, dismissed."

"Thank you, Mr. D," I said as sardonically as I could manage, but he must have been in a good mood, because he merely waved me a way and summoned a fresh Diet Coke.

I dropped my backpack on my bunk in Cabin Three and left to wander camp and look for someone I knew.

The Stoll twins waved and even Clarisse grunted when I passed. None of the Athena cabin had seen Annabeth yet, and Grover was nowhere to be found, so I retuned to the Hermes cabin and listed to Travis chatter about how there were actually as many bunks as cabin members this year.

"Percy!" I heard a familiar voice scream from behind me. I turned and caught a glimpse of Annabeth running and grinning widely, before she was right there, kissing me.

I stood shocked for a second before she pulled back. One of the Stoll twins wolf-whistled.

"Hello to you too," I managed.

"That had better be the first one you've gotten since I left, Seaweed Brain," she teased, flipping her curls over one shoulder.

"Hmm, no, I seem to remember another…"

She hit me with her architecture book.

"I was talking about my mom, geez," I complained.

"Aw, does Percy's mommy still kiss him before bed every night?" she cooed.

"Oh, lay off, Annabeth," another voice called good naturedly.

"Grover! Good to see you, man!" I exclaimed as he trotted up with a grin.

"I just got back from Yellowstone Park, but I'm here all summer," he bragged. "Have you seen Juniper?"

"No, I – " Annabeth started, but she was interrupted by Juniper's squealing appearance from the nearby trees. She said a brief hello to Annabeth and me before jumping Grover and dragging him back to her bush. He seemed only too happy to oblige.

Annabeth sat next to me by the campfire that night, a familiar tradition from previous years, and held my hand, which was a new bonus. It was good to see her. Of course, I had spent all year with her, and that had been a blast: the two of us with our huge secret among all the oblivious mortals at school. But I loved being at camp again, where everyone was in on the secret.

Apollo's cabin led us in singing some old camp favorites. The fire roared bright yellow, reflective of our high spirits, but the flames slowly sank to a contented blue-green as the night wore on.

Annabeth sighed and leaned back against me. I twirled her single lock of grey hair, the one she had gotten from holding up the sky, around my finger. "Yours isn't as noticeable as mine," I commented absently.

"Hmm?"

"Your grey hair. Against the blond, it's not as noticeable."

She glanced up and tugged my grey hair playfully. "I don't mind. I mean," she checked herself, "it sucks to be going grey at sixteen. But it's kind of nice. That we match."

I smiled and told her, "I know what you mean." Freeing my hand from her hair, I turned her chin to I could kiss her. On of her hands snaked around to the small of my back – the one vulnerable spot on my body. I set all my nerves on hyperalert.

One small corner of the campfire burned crimson.

**A/N: …woohoo. Want to tell me what you thought? *struggles not to review her own fic in the author's note***

**EDIT: Also, this is a oneshot. I'm honored if you want me to continue it, but I don't have a plot or anything. It's just supposed to be fluffy.  
**

**(Oh, by the way, if any of you read 101 Ways… I'm working on it, I promise.)**

**I'm sure I'll be seeing you again, PJ fandom. :D**


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